Babe Laufenberg

Here we go again. Summer is coming to a close (although the heat won't be gone for a while), and football season is upon us. Training camps will be opening from the Dallas Cowboys to colleges to high schools. And boy, have training camps changed!

There is greater awareness of safety issues, both in regard to the heat and concussions and head injuries, and that is all for the better.

Gone are the days when, as anyone over 40 remembers, water was given not as something to keep you alive, but dangled in front of you like a carrot for a good practice.

The Cowboys have moved back to the much cooler climate of Oxnard, Calif., and I, for one, couldn't be happier. As Kevin Costner asked Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams, "What's in it for me?"

Well, for starters, the high in Oxnard will be around 75 degrees with the low about 74. Yeah, it is a good job, isn't it? And here is the best caveat in my job. I am off work at 8:30 p.m. on the West Coast instead of 10:30 p.m. Anyone who works a night job appreciates that. It means we can actually eat a late dinner in a real restaurant.

An added benefit for the players is practicing on grass rather than the hard turf of San Antonio's Alamodome. In the morning, there are typically marine layer clouds over the field. By evening, the breezes off the Pacific Ocean make it downright cool.

I remember from when I was playing how hard it was to get up to go to the morning practice and loosen your muscles. Quarterbacks" arms in training camp were always aching from throwing twice a day. Receivers" and cornerbacks" legs felt as if they had been running in sand. This year, Cowboys players will not have to worry about that. All they have is a walk-through session in the morning. No running. No pads. No physical exertion. Not quite Club Med, but not far off.

I truly enjoy watching players develop. There are always a couple you knew virtually nothing about who seem to make a play every practice. A player will do the same thing the next practice, then the next week, until finally you say: "I think the Cowboys have a player on their hands." It happened for Tony Romo and Miles Austin, and it will happen in this camp as well. I would love to tell you who that will be, but I am just not that smart!

I also enjoy the banter among the media on the sidelines. After about the 20th practice, everyone tends to get just a little bored - they've been gone from home too long. So in between coming up with new nicknames for Cowboys play-by-play man Brad Sham and keeping our CBS 11's own Steve Dennis in line, you develop little games to amuse yourself.

One day John Madden walked out on the field without the required media credential. I jokingly asked the Cowboys public relations department people why. We decided that if you are famous enough, your face is actually your credential. The same for Kevin Costner when he made an appearance.

The great Pat Summerall once told me, "We were all born too early." And when it comes to training camp, he was absolutely right. My first year, we spent seven weeks at camp, virtually all two practices a day and all in full pads. Until 1978, when the NFL expanded the season to 16 games, there were six pre-season games instead of four. That meant training camp lasted eight weeks. And that meant that fully 17 percent of a grown man's life was spent in a dormitory bed. Ouch!

But two-a-days are a thing of the past, abolished by the new collective bargaining agreement. There is minimal contact and a scheduled day off each week, something that would be foreign to former players.

It is encouraging to see how the health and conditioning of our local high school players has changed. Water, for example, is no longer a reward but an acknowledgment that we live in an area where the climate is not conducive to two-hour practices wearing 10 pounds of gear and a helmet that does not breathe.

So when you send your son off to camp for high school football, tell him that if he makes the big time, he may get to go to soak in the sunshine and enjoy the ocean breezes of Southern California - just like the Dallas Cowboys. - Babe Laufenberg